Author: Regency
Title: His Grimm Companion
Rating: G/Kids
Spoilers: Let's Kill Hitler
Pairing: Doctor/Mels UST
Summary: When the Doctor returns to pick up little Amy, Sexy sends him to someone else's backyard: the backyard of not-so-little Amy's best friend, Mels. On a lark, the Doctor decides to take a bad girl onboard his ship. Nothing will ever be the same.
Disclaimer: None of the characters recognizable from Doctor Who belong to me. They're the property of the BBC, Steven Moffat et al. I'm merely borrowing them. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: Title is a play on words. Since Amy Pond is the Doctor fairytale girl, her daughter would be as well; however, given how her life turns out she's more likely to be a girl right out of the works of the Brothers Grimm. She's a Grimm's Fairytale girl. Also, feel free to hit me up with the concrit. I really do want to hear it.
~!~
He looked up at her, a tad miffed at the sight. This was not where he'd intended to go, not where he wanted to be. And still the girl—no, the young woman—sat smoking as though the night was young while she was not. If he'd been closer, he might have taken it away and ground it underneath his heel. He might have also taken drag. No, no, absolutely not! He might have, though; she made it seem heavenly.
"Who are you then," he asked, as though she were the mad one in the mad box in someone else's yard.
She put her cigarette out on a shingle and they watched it go out together. "Mels."
He wrinkled his brow. Not much of a name, that, and he ought to know. "Mels? What's that short for?"
"Melody." She stretched her limbs with easy grace and dropped from the first level overhang with a swinging leap.
The Doctor's hearts stuttered in his chest, he knew not why. No, no, no!
She landed spryly on her booted feet. Fine boots, shined buckles and mud on toes. She likes to kick. The Doctor could kick. Maybe they could go out kicking for a bit?
"What brings you to my backyard, Doctor?" She sidled toward him with a smile on her face. It made his insides dance uneasily, but too, too easily. He swallowed.
"You know who I am?"
"This is Leadworth. We all know you in Leadworth. Just because Amy doesn't talk about you to everyone she meets anymore doesn't mean we forget."
The Doctor pouted, thinking of his impossible Amelia Pond. "She doesn't talk about me. I thought we were best friends."
"Best friends shouldn't leave each other alone for so long," she snapped abruptly with a narrow-eyed gaze. "I've never left her and I'm still second to you, because you're her Raggedy Doctor, and I'm just the girl down the lane."
His hands twitched with discomfort. Jealousy, he'd never been all that good with that. Or women, for that matter. How to deal with what he'd done wrong when he wasn't sure exactly what that was. He latched on to a passing thought.
"Lanes are good! They're great; fantastic and lane-y and whatnot. Lanes are perfect and girls on lanes are magnificent. I bet you're an amazing best friend."
She crossed her arms, resplendent in leather and unamused. "Yeah, I am. Better than you. Do you know how long she's waited for you?"
The Doctor tried to ignore the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. This couldn't be good and he knew it couldn't be. Oh, Sexy, why have you forsaken me?
"Months," he ventured. He didn't want to know, oh, he didn't.
"Years, Doctor. Little Amy isn't little now." She frowned at him—she hates me, please don't hate me—with an expression of such disappointment that he would have sooner been swallowed whole than live through another moment of it. "She adored you and she's still waiting. She's supposed to be marrying this amazing bloke, but, really, she's still holding out for you."
The hurt landed at dual points, dead center on each of his hearts. His Amelia was all grown-up, no longer Wendy to his Peter Pan, and she was supposed to be in love. But she can't be, because she can't let me go. My girl who waited.
"And waited and waited and waited," Mels said as though his thoughts were hers for the reading, writ in the stars on high. They might have been.
"Then, I should never come back." What was once a galaxy of adventure in a phonebox felt like the pure vacuum of space for its emptiness. He'd never intended to go back alone.
"You'll have to come back someday. I won't let you break her heart completely. Someday, she'll have to make her peace with you and all you may have been. Someday, she'll have to let go of Neverland."
His throat felt tight and his person ever so small. When had the universe become so big and lonely and why did it feel so much more so on this tiny little planet called Earth?
"Yes," he agreed, pained. "No more touching the stars, not for Amelia Pond." His ginger-haired, fiery-hearted fairytale girl.
Mels sighed and he could hear a softness in it. "Don't be like that. This isn't goodbye for you or her. You gave her wings; now, you have to give her a sky to fly in. Earth is too small for Amelia-bird."
His spirit leapt at the new image, at the new name. The things they could do with wings, you see. He could have jumped; he did jump. He grinned and spun and grasped at Mels with happy hands.
She was not as soft as the softness in her voice. Under polished cow hide, she was steel made flesh, a momentarily frightening revelation given his experience. She did not radiate heat the way other humans did, little walking furnaces that they were. Her body was cool, though not cold. Touching her was akin to living in his own skin. He rather liked the feeling.
"Work out much," he found himself saying for want of hushing up the things that whispered, naughty, in his ear. He never felt this way.
Her lips tilted. "I like a good workout now and then; a bit of running never hurt."
His mouth moved to mimic hers; the faint amusement, the sardonic cant. He wanted his lips to do what hers did, such an interesting state. They said so much with what they didn't say.
"I like to run." He adored running. It was his favorite of all the favorite things. "I run loads when I go places. Always something to run to or run from." He furrowed his brow, doing the maths. "A lot more running from, it seems."
"That is what happens when you poke things with a sonic stick."
He beamed, standing smug and proud. "It's a sonic screwdriver, I'll have you know, and I don't poke things with it." She put her hands on her hips. He flailed a bit at the gesture, his pulse picking up pace. "I don't! Honest!"
She gave a neutral hum. "Of course not, Doctor."
"Spoilsport," he grumbled. She chuckled and he found he liked the sound of it. He liked the sound of Mels quite a bit; he wanted to hear more.
But she began to leave. After gently budging his bowtie, she began to back away. "Go find your fairytale girl, Doctor. Tell her I'll keep Rory company until she comes home. We'll still be waiting."
Waiting, waiting, always with the waiting. The Doctor missed the mysterious Mels before she was even out of reach. "I don't…I don't have to go now. Not right this instant." After all, what's the point in having a time machine if you have to rush every place you go?
Mels started to look wary, confused and wary. "What do you mean?"
"You and I, we could have an adventure of our own. What sort of Pan would I be if didn't take you to Neverland, too?" For a moment, the guarded look in her eyes faded to be replaced with something luminous. He leaned toward it, that oddly familiar thing. "We could see the universe begin, or end, if you'd prefer. Things you can't begin to imagine."
"I've been told I have an incredibly active imagination," she volleyed, smiling faintly with hope fading. That known thing was going away and it left him scrambling. What did I say? Did I do something wrong? He didn't understand women at all, the ones from Leadworth least of all.
"That's the best thing to have out there. We could go, just you and me. Or we could take Amelia and the three of us could see everything there is to see."
"All of time and space?"
"For as long as you want me." He flushed, shocked at his traitorous mouth. "It. Time and space. As long as you want that. To see time and space." He stopped talking by necessity. It would be difficult to climb out of a hole twice his height, even a metaphorical one. She makes me giddy and eager. Why? "Come with me."
"You're her Raggedy Doctor."
The Doctor's hands hung blessedly still as he answered, "But I could be yours, too."
"My heart isn't for sale, Doctor." Every syllable was a lie and that knowledge made him braver.
The hand he reached out was steady, sure. She was wavering, on the cusp of changing what might have been to something new. He wanted her to try new with him; he no longer cared the reason.
"It's funny you should say that," he said, as her fingers fit themselves with his. "I've been told I'm a rather gifted thief."
She smirked, bad girl that she was, and confessed, "Me, too."
Hand in hand, they catapulted themselves into the stars, and the universe held its breath.
This could only end in tragedy, but it would begin with a fairytale.